


On the way down

by mithborien



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-26
Updated: 2006-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithborien/pseuds/mithborien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War is never easy and surviving is never simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the way down

The door knob is slick with blood.

Tonks swears and tries to wipe her hand clean on her robes. She can feel the awful squelching against her skin from the half dried mud and blood that clams her clothes and skin together. Remus is mumbling something against her neck, fingers twisted tightly in her hair. She can feel him wince whenever she turns too sharply, jumping at every half heard noise in the dark night, every animal call that may or may not be a howl.

The last two fingers on her right hand are broken. Her wand was snapped in half through her fist, cracking bone and pressing splinters into skin. She takes a deep breath, hears Remus’ rattled echo and forces herself to ignore the state of his body (and hers) for the moment.

There’s a shout in the distance, the sound of a door being kicked open and Tonks whispers the words of an unlocking spell through an aching jaw. The door handle twists underneath her hand, the door swings inwards and pulls her along with it. She stumbles and sprawls forward, Remus tumbling down on top of her. He groans as she pushes him to the side.

She slams the door shut with her foot and when the lock clicks into place, she can feel the glorious rush of magic, of protection spells being activated.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Remus’ ripped clothes and the slivers of blood underneath. Without a wand, she couldn’t summon the Knight Bus or create a portkey. Apparition becomes risky when you’re injured and there was no guarantee that Tonks would have been able to get them both away safely.

This was their only option and she hopes she hasn’t snared them in a trap. She takes a deep breath and her heart stops pounding.

* * *

The shower is small and cramped. She wasn’t even certain it would work but when she twists the taps, clean water spurts out. Its freezing cold but she only cares how fast it can wash the blood from the walls.

Remus flinches once when the cold water hits his skin, shivers once and surrenders. He lets Tonks strip the robe from his shoulders, revealing a white undershirt soaked through with blood and sweat. She can see the hints of dark bruises blossoming and scratches gouged in ribbons down his arms. He doesn’t respond when her fingernails catch on the edges of torn flesh and it’s only the strength of her own body that’s holding him upright.

“Come on, Remus,” Tonks whispers. “Wake up.”

His eyes flicker and there is such a peaceful expression on his face that she begins to think that they’re going to be all right. Then his mouth turns into a snarl and his eyes harden and one of his hands claws its way around her throat, slamming her back against the cold tiles.

She gasps for air and he shouts something in his panic. Tonks doesn’t hesitate before she braces herself instinctively with one foot against the opposite wall of the shower and jams her other foot against Remus’ throat. He wraps his other hand around her ankle trying to push her off but she holds firm and it only takes a couple of moments for the wild look in Remus’ eyes to fade and be replaced with recognition.

He chokes out her name, lets her pull his hand off her neck and sinks down against one side of the shower, crumpling on the floor. There are red marks on his throat from the grips on her boots and his shoulders shake against the spray of cold water.

She pauses, slumped against the cold tiles, trying to get her breath back. The broken bones in her hand are throbbing and she can feel her knees buckle. She lets herself slide down as well until she’s kneeling beside him.

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s only me.”

Remus looks away and closes his eyes. He doesn’t move when she pulls the rest of his ripped clothes away.

* * *

The medicine chest is woefully out of stock. Rolls of bandages and a few potions that smell so old Tonks doubts they would work.

The place they are hiding in, a small flat in a half lived in building, used to be part of network of safe houses kept by the Aurors in case of emergency. They were meant to contain food, healing supplies and a set of spare wands, so general in their core that anyone should be able to use them to cast basic spells. The wand case is empty but for dust though and the preservation spells on the small store of food have long since dissipated. The only thing that still works are the anti-muggle and protective spells built into the floor, walls, ceiling and doors. There aren’t any windows.

This place hasn’t been checked up on in a while, funding cutbacks, constant changing of their superiors and divisions within the Auror ranks themselves resulting in a half effective response to a war.

Tonks curses in frustration as she binds Remus’ body in long white bandages. She can vaguely recall lessons from Auror Training on muggle healing techniques and healing without wands. But healing spells are delicate and she doesn’t trust herself not to make things even worse.

Remus fluctuates between groaning in pain and embarrassment at having a young witch tend to him while naked. She wants to smile and make a comment about this isn’t the first time she’s seen him naked but that’s still a sore point between them. He remains conscious only long enough to collapse onto the one bed in the room, getting his legs tangled in the sheets before finally passing out.

She’s grateful for that at the moment. He doesn’t have to listen to her screams as she sets the bones in her hand and bandages them tightly. When she looks up, her face in the mirror is discoloured by the bad lighting, flushed skin and purple bruises on her jaw. There are strands of pink hair sticking against her sweat covered neck but the colour fades the longer she stares at it.

She sighs and turns around to lean against the bathroom sink. Remus is still unconscious, unmoving on the bed and she continues to stare at him as she drags her robes over her head, undresses and steps into the shower.

* * *

The werewolves had come out of nowhere.

Remus had been waiting patiently at the rendezvous point and Tonks had only been a couple of steps away when they struck. They were Greyback’s elite and they were almost as vicious as humans then when under the full moon. Remus went down instantly, he didn’t even have a wand, a dead giveaway when trying to hide in a werewolf pack and all Tonks could hear were the sounds of fists hitting flesh and nails tearing through skin.

She took two of them out before they set on her, breaking her wand and her hand in the process. She kicked one in the neck and when he didn’t get up again, his pack mates melted into the night leaving Tonks shaking under a streetlight and Remus bleeding and dazed on the pavement.

She had dragged him to his feet, ignoring his cries of pain and struggled to find the closest place of safety. Without a wand and unsure whether Remus would survive Apparating, the old Auror safe houses were the closest protection. There’s no Floo here, however, and any portkeys that might have been here never got restocked. With determined werewolves trying to find and force their way in, they won’t be able to stay here for long. Sooner or later, they will have to take their chances outside.

Tonks can see the half healed wounds and fading yellow bruises on Remus’ skin that look at least a week old. She wonders what went wrong with the werewolves, why they waited until now to attack him and why they didn’t just kill him when they had the chance.

She’s sitting on the bed beside him, one hand on his shoulder. The bandages are rough against her palm, his flesh burning hot against her fingertips. She’s considering whether he has a fever or not when he shudders and opens his eyes. He doesn’t return the smile on her face.

“What happened?” he asks and tries to move. He groans in pain and slumps back down on the mattress.

“Werewolves,” Tonks says simply and Remus shuts his eyes again.

* * *

The throbbing in her hand has mostly stopped but without fail every half an hour or so she knocks it against something and the bones in her fingers grate together and she screams. The first time it happened, Remus jerked awake and asked her what was wrong in an alarmed voice. He doesn’t ask anymore.

She really should sit still and just wait for Remus to recover somewhat but the half-heard and imagined thumps and shouts from outside are getting on her nerves. The spells on the room muffle any sounds so they probably won’t hear the werewolves breaking in until it’s too late.

“I’m sorry,” says a quiet voice from the bed and Tonks stops pacing the room to see Remus looking at her with unreadable eyes.

“About what?” she asks.

He smiles slightly. “You say that like there are multiple things I am at fault for.”

She wanders over and sits on the edge of his side of the bed. He tries to move to accommodate her but his limbs are still stiff and her thigh ends up pressed against the side of his torso. “Well, I have to consider your habit of trying to take the blame for everything,” she says quietly. “What is it this time that you feel you have to apologise for?”

Remus frowns and looks away but his hand finds one of hers and his thumb starts to stroke her wrist. Her skin is damp with sweat. “For trying to strangle you in the shower. I think we can safely attribute that to me.”

She smiles, even though he can’t see it. “I know you didn’t mean to. If you did then you would have strangled me the first moment you met me.”

Remus tries to laugh and chokes on the pain.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Like crap,” he answers sharply.

“Want to tell me why we were attacked?”

“No.”

Remus rolls over and they spend the next hour in silence.

* * *

Remus has managed to sit up, though he coughs up blood every ten minutes. Tonks tried to feel if he had any broken ribs but he only tolerated her hands on his body for a couple minutes before he flung them away.

The pain in her hand has descended into a dull ache that she can push out of her mind or maybe she’s still in shock. She broke her leg once when she was young and it took an hour for her to notice the pain enough to cause her parents to think something was wrong. Metamorphmagi are never at ease enough in their bodies as people seem to think.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Remus says when he can manage a sentence without coughing.

“Why’s that?” Tonks says vaguely as she searches the rooms for the third time for something useful.

“They know about you and me,” Remus replies dully. “The werewolves wouldn’t have attacked otherwise.”

She sighs and refuses to look up. “Then tell me why did they attack you and not me? And why did they wait until I showed up?”

Remus coughs. “To hurt you. They don’t think werewolves should be with other-”

“If that was the case,” she says sharply. “They would have knocked you out previously, sent someone else in place of you, kidnapped me and then tortured me before your eyes. Now, do you want to tell me why you have cuts and bruises that are at least a week old?”

Remus sighs. “No.”

“They know you’re working in the Order. They’re just toying with you.”

“I know,” Remus says softly. “But even when they’re toying with me, there’s still the chance that Greyback will let some bit of information slip. We need any scrap we can get.”

“He’ll kill you before you have a chance to get away,” Tonks points out angrily.

“Don’t underestimate me,” Remus shoots back.

Tonks slams her uninjured hand against the wall. “I’m not, damn it. I’m also not underestimating Greyback. He’s up to something and you have no idea what it is.”

Remus just sighs again and stares at the patch of wall that Tonks hit. The plaster had cracked slightly and clouds of dust floated down to the ground.

“Do you think you can stand?” Tonks asks in the silence.

“Maybe.”

* * *

It takes Remus half an hour to get to his feet, ten minutes to get dressed in the spare set of robes Tonks found and another twenty minutes to recover from the spasms of pain that moving caused him.

“I’m fine,” Remus gasps when Tonks moves to soothe him.

“We don’t have to leave yet,” she says, looking dubiously at the flecks of blood on his robes.

“We don’t have a choice,” he says, stifling painful coughs. “We have to leave before I get any worse. How far do we have to go?”

“There’s a Floo point one mile away,” Tonks says frowning.

“We should have gone there first,” Remus says viciously.

She glares at him. “You would have dropped dead after twenty metres and I couldn’t drag you with only one hand.”

Remus frowns and looks embarrassed. “How’s your hand?” he finally asks.

“I’ll be fine,” she replies sharply. “As I said, I wasn’t the one at death’s door.”

Remus doesn’t answer but he doesn’t move away when she pulls him to his feet and wraps one arm around him. They’re going to have to make a run for it, stealth is their only option and it’s a pretty poor one at that.

“Drink this,” she says and hands him a small bottle. “It’s a rejuvenation potion I found. No idea if it still works but it’s better than nothing.”

He nods and swallows the potion, choking slightly at the end. His hands are shaking and his face is pale in the scant light of the flat.

“We got one chance at this,” she tells him.

“I know,” Remus says hoarsely. “If I fall, keep-”

Tonks grips him tightly, causing him to wince. “Don’t. Don’t even say it. I’m not going to abandon a comrade in the face of danger,” she says fiercely.

“I’m the only reason you’re in danger,” Remus says, gritting his teeth.

“We’re in a war, Remus,” she says, looking deep into his eyes. “I was an Auror long before you met me. I’m in danger regardless of what our relationship may be. The werewolves would attack me simply because I’m on the other side.”

He doesn’t say anything as she readies them to depart but in the moment before she unlocks the door he sighs and whispers in her ear, “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Her hand slips up his back until her palm is flat against his neck. “I know but I don’t want you to get hurt either.” She pauses then adds, “And did it ever occur to you that maybe you would be dead if I hadn’t been here.”

The night air is freezing when Tonks unlocks the door and they step out into the hallway. There’s nothing but silence and the sound of Remus’ harsh breathing.

“Yes,” Remus says when Tonks adjusts her grip on him. “It did occur to me.”

She smiles at him but he’s already staring off into the distance. The howls start and her heart starts to pound.


End file.
